Abstract: Polyurea dendrimer-perylene nanoshells are found to accurately discriminate structurally closely related nitroaromatics. Both studied systems, PUREG1-PER6 and PUREG4-PER48, present high sensitivity (detection limits between 5 x 10-6 and 20 x 10-6m) and selectivity for 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) collected from a powdered military grenade and picric acid. The selectivity is highly dependent on the dendrimer generation. A conformationally restricted 3D arrangement in PUREG4-PER48, which is favored by shell π-π stacking and core urea-assisted hydrogen bonding, supports the formation of self-imprinted channels with molecular recognition for picric acid and TNT in complex mixtures of nitroaromatics
Template and target information: 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, TNT
Author keywords: polyurea dendrimers, perylenes, nitroaromatics, self-imprinting, sensors